Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 1, 2018
The Pioneer Helmet is a boar-crested Anglo-Saxon helmet dating from the late seventh century. During a March 1997 excavation, it was found in Wollaston, Northamptonshire, in a young man's grave, probably the burial mound of a high-status warrior, along with a hanging bowl and a pattern welded sword. The sparsely decorated helmet is one of only six Anglo-Saxon helmets yet discovered, joined by finds from Benty Grange, Sutton Hoo, York, Shorwell and Staffordshire. Like most of these, it is one of the crested helmets that flourished in England and Scandinavia from the sixth through the eleventh centuries. Boar-crested helmets are a staple of Anglo-Saxon imagery, evidence of a Germanic tradition in which the boar invoked the protection of the gods. In the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, such helmets are mentioned five times. Unveiled at the New Walk Museum in Leicester, the helmet is on display at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds. (Full article...)